Saudi Arabia Introduces SMS System That Alerts Husbands, Fathers When Women Are Leaving The Country

The Saudi Arabian authorities have given new meaning to the phrase "women's movement" with an innovative and controversial SMS service. An electronic system that monitors cross-border movements sends a text alert to a woman's male guardian when she leaves the country—even when her guardian (her husband, father, whoever) is traveling alongside her. The system, which also sends alerts when minors leave the country, is a replacement for the previous Yellow Slip system, where female travel could only be authorized by a male signature on a yellow sheet of paper. This, says the Interior Ministry, is part of its modernizing e-government plan.

Unsurprisingly, the move has caused uproar around the world, with commentators likening the Saudi government to the Taliban and suggesting other ways of shackling their women, such as probation anklets or microchipping.

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The same smarties that had that idea could use this on themselves after being sent to Antarctica. I suggest surgically implanted into their own brains (wild thinking here when I assume they do have brains). But then again, poor pinguins